Discoveries from Finland World Cinema

Second silver screen adaption of the Finnish war book by Väinö Linna. The story is based on Linna's experiences as an infantry man in the Finnish army during the so called "Continuation War" (1941-1944).

When Hamlet discovers his father’s deceased body, he finds himself pulled into a power struggle as his scheming uncle attempts to secure a monopoly on the Scandinavian rubber duck industry. Will Hamlet avenge his father? Will he become the king of rubber ducks? Does any of it really matter?

Snot and Splash travel to their grandmother's house in the small town of Mouthwash for a winter holiday. Once there, they discover that everything is a little off in what used to be a very ordinary town. The strangest thing is that holes are disappearing from the town. Snot and Splash set out to investigate and manage to get on the trail of a local dentist, Migrén Junior. However, the investigation is in danger of failing when messy Snot and diligent Splash get into an argument with each other. How can Mouthwash be restored and the holes put back in place if the boys can't work together? The only way to restore the world is for the brothers to work together.

Martta and Otto are a pair of traveling tailors who claim to be bastard descendants of the Romanovs and wander from town to town in Finland seeking work, accompanied by their two half-witted adult sons, Hippo, Repe and equally silly son-in-law Ventti. The family occasionally turns to crime when they can't quite make ends meet, and the boys begin turning to violence with greater frequency when Otto weakens and Martta becomes the head of the family business. Their fortunes take an unexpected turn when the brothers assault and abduct a man they call Kaspar, who becomes the family's sidekick in their travels. Despite Kaspar's inability to speak, he attracts Martha's youngest daughter, an attractive young woman named Lara, but the family is in disarray when a long-lost half-brother, Laszlo, suddenly re-emerges and tries to wrest control of the clan away from his mother.

8-Ball tells the story of single mother Pike who, having just been released from prison, is trying to start her life anew. When her former boyfriend Lalli comes back from abroad, it opens a window into a past that Pike wants to put behind her.

Arachnobody is a symbolically colored short film about a character who suddenly falls ill and isolates himself. Seeking to return to normal life, he turns to a doctor whose help comes at a cost, reflecting a society where kindness is often given only when there's something to gain.

Inkeri, 75, has hit her husband on the head with a solid iron frying pan and is planning to bury him in their garden. Before facing the rest of her life in prison, there may yet be a moment left to really live. Inkeri makes her sisters Sylvi and Raili join her on a trip to the Koli National Park. Will Inkeri find in her that free young woman who desired a feminist revolution in the 70s?

In a machine-addicted future, 17-year-old Toni craves something real. He joins a deadly street race, challenging fearless driver Max, unaware of the bond they share. A gritty coming-of-age thrill ride.

Guled and Nasra are a loving couple, living in the outskirts of Djibouti city with their teenage son, Mahad. However, they are facing difficult times: Nasra urgently needs an expensive surgery to treat a chronic kidney disease. Guled is already working hard as a gravedigger to make ends meet.

A teenage orphan girl Salome lives within a sect lead by charismatic and ruthless Maria Åkerblom. During a pivotal summer, Salome is faced with standing up against Maria, the woman who had saved her.

Not to be confused with any of the sequels to Sylvester Stallone's classic Oscar-winning Rocky, this short film from Finnish filmmaker Aki Kaurismäki is actually meant as a parody of the late Cold War-era Rocky IV, which saw Stallone's character taking on a juiced-up Russian fighter played by Dolph Lundgren. In this 1986 send-up, Rock'y, played by Silu Seppala, goes head to head with Soviet Igor (Sakari Kuosmanen) and loses.

Vares gets a desperate phone call from his friend Kyypakkaus, who needs rescuing. While Vares rescues his friend, the daughter of a private detective's stepfamily is kidnapped. Vares is forced to play for higher stakes than ever before. Events become intertwined with a mysterious sex cult and an underworld showdown. Who can Jussi Vares finally save?

Three adult siblings return to their childhood home, where their parents were allegedly murdered many years ago. Their plan is to get the house and estate ready to be sold but an evil force tries to prevent them from doing so.

Pekka Malmikunnas is a bankrupt, penniless man, who has convinced his family that he is still the CEO of a large IT company. Maintaining this façade in order to save face has become something of a full-time job for him. When Pekka’s parents unexpectedly come for a visit, he throws a lavish family dinner party in order to dispel any doubts. The soirée is a success until Pekka’s god-daughter gets run over by a car. The reckless driver becomes a mutual enemy for the family. The driver tries to atone for his actions, but the situation spirals out of control and Pekka attacks the man. Pekka realizes things have gone too far and decides to tell his family the truth. It does not hurt as much as Pekka thought, bringing the pieces of a once broken family back together.

Talkative, hyperactive young drifter Ville Alfa goes around Helsinki, basically trying to borrow money from friends and strangers by means of an incessant delivery of quirky and snappy quasi-intellectual lines and fabricated excuses.

Welcome to Båtsfjord, one of the northernmost fishing villages of the world, where cod is more important than God. In Cod We Trust is a mosaic puzzle, where people are knit together by fish, the town and nature. With an observational camera and closely heard dialogue, you will feel like you are there, candidly watching them, as they reveal how history and circumstances shape us and our perception of home. Båtsfjord might be the most remote and coldest place on earth, but here you will find the warmest people with the most outstanding humour.

A 16 year old girl claims she was abducted. Two police officer are tasked with investigating whether her story is plausible.

In 1897, Finnish brothers Pietari and Verner Korpi head to the harsh frontier of Minnesota in search of their missing father.

Widowed and broke Finnish businessman Kari takes his two teenage daughters with him to Brazil. A bush pilot introduces him to the idea of gold mining in the jungle, but a beautiful and educated local woman warns him about the possible consequences to the rain forest. Kari has mixed feelings about the project, until an accident puts him in the care of a local Indian tribe.

Dreams perimeter Matti Ijäksen has written and directed, praised to the skies domestic film, which is in addition to starring always convincing trace Knocking Petteri Summanen and Sulevi Peltola. It is therefore goes without saying that expectations were high in its case. But how it happened? Dreams own peripheral clearly some form of casing, which does not let therein, but hits the deck of the cut made without the kehääkin - Joint events yhteenparsimisen means.

The beloved comedian Simo Salminen began his career as a National Championship level diver in the 1950s. Entertainment was an integral part of his sporting life, and Salminen began performing clown dives in a clown costume to the delight of children. The short film Simo Was Here takes the now elderly Salminen back to the Helsinki Swimming Stadium and illustrates his memories of the good old days. This nostalgic work is dedicated to the memory of Salminen, who passed away in 2015.

The war documentary Rivilotta (1943), directed by Turo Karto, was filmed in the winter of 1941-42. The film, produced by the Finnish Defence Forces, presents the goals of the Lotta Svärd organization and the different aspects of the Lotta Svärd's work.

Ski Girls tells about four friends who have visited different ski resorts every year since their youth. They call themselves Ski Girls, even though they never ski and can no longer be called girls either. This time they are reunited for Emma's wedding. Emma's fifth wedding, that is. Their friendship will be tested as the other Ski Girls decide to stop Emma from making another mistake by getting married.

Outcast by his co-workers and living alone, Koistinen is a security guard who works the night shift in a luxury shopping mall in Helsinki. But when icy blonde Mirja approaches him, the lonely Koistinen falls helplessly for her, unaware she is manipulating him for her criminal boyfriend.

19th century drama set on the plains of Ostrobothnia, western Finland, which are controlled by groups of knife-wielding thugs, the toughs. Traditionally, the first-born son inherits everything, so when Esko – a bum and a gang leader – learns that his father will leave the Välitalo estate to his younger and exemplary brother, all hell breaks loose.

Set in the final weekend of the year 1995 Ice Hockey World Championships, 95 tells through overlapping stories why Finland became a ice hockey world champion and how it affected the whole nation.

A young Start-up entrepreneur tries to start importing potato to 17th century Finland. The new class of bourgeoisie is emerging and shaking up the stagnant spirit of the era. But nobody believes in potato, and the Turnip-Sellers Guild decides to squash the disturbance caused by the young entrepreneurs. In the end, the bumpy road of potatoes grows into mythical proportions.

No prints of the film have been preserved so the film can be considered a lost film. The original screenplay has also been lost. However, some plot descriptions are still known based on contemporary newspaper advertisements of the film. As the name would indicate, the film tells about two local men who are making moonshine in the woods. A customer comes to them, and while sampling the product they start a game of cards, which eventually leads to a fight. While the fight is going on, the local police shows up and arrests the makers while the customer manages to escape.(Wikipedia)

Epic tale about two generations of men in a wealthy Finnish family, spanning from the 1960s all the way through the early 1990s. The father has achieved his position as director of the family business through marrying the heiress. Their eldest son Dani, hoped to succeed his father, succumbs to drugs while pursuing a career in rock music. Younger Riku grows up under the shadow of his more talented big brother and slowly drifts into the late 1980s, noticing then how many of his friends have managed to take advantage of the economic upswing.

The Finnish coast guard battles the bootleggers who smuggle booze across the Gulf of Finland during the prohibition law.

With few options, newly pardoned convict Leila agrees to work as an assistant to a blind pastor. Father Jacob spends his days answering the letters of the needy, which Leila finds pointless. But when the letters stop, the pastor is devastated and Leila finds herself cast in a new role.

Anya, a young academic raised in an orphanage, is on the cusp of success when she’s accused of drug possession. While in limbo hiding from the police, she hits the road with Kristina, another orphan several years Anya’s junior, in search of her possibly mythical grandmother.

Summer 1962 and Olli Mäki has a shot at the world championship title in featherweight boxing. From the Finnish countryside to the bright lights of Helsinki, everything has been prepared for his fame and fortune. All Olli has to do is lose weight and concentrate. But there is a problem – he has fallen in love with Raija.

The young man must set up a clear border between Finland and Russia, white and red, enemy and friend, us and them. While the task seems clear he finds out the execution of his command in concrete situations is very difficult. Right choices turn out to be wrong ones and correcting them make things worse.

Recovering from a nail gun shot to the head and 13 months of coma, doctor Pekka Valinta starts to unravel the mystery of his past, still suffering from total amnesia.

16-year-old Eveliina accidentally sees her mother kissing another woman. Fearing her parents' divorce, she decides to intervene, by any means and without permission. In her opinion, the best way to destroy her mother's extramarital affair and bring her parents back together is a teenage daughter in trouble. Thus, Eveliina gets herself in trouble as many ways as she can. Along the way, the lives of a few others are at stake. Still, Eveliina guards her plan to the last, and the adults have their own secret ways of survival - until the bubble bursts.

A Finnish live action adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale, The Snow Queen. The tale centers on the struggle between good and evil as experienced by a little boy and girl, Kai and Kerttu.

Psychiatric patient Elmeri knows about the existence of a gold treasure in Finnish Lapland, hidden there by his late father who somehow managed to capture it from withdrawing German troops on the last days of WW2. His openly gay nurse helps him escape from the mental institution, and the two men slowly find their way up north to reach the gold. On their way, the odd couple meets a cavalcade of even odder characters.

Sakari and Veera get engaged, madly in love. Not long after, Veera asks Sakari to help her in a matter relating to her father, and in a way that completely shocks Sakari. He does everything in his power to stop her from pursuing her plan. But before the story is over, Sakari will be been forced to make choices he thought he'd never have to face.

To save the world, Super Furball has to save the bees. In order to do so, the heroic guinea pig has to redeem the biggest bully in school.

A film group is making movie in the little town. Writer Pentti Töysä interrupts film group's press conference and claims that script is written by him and it is based on true story. Töysä also says that he has written a new ending to the movie and that it reveals an old murder. Not everyone is happy about the new twist.

Anna is a 16-year old in a village where women are accused of witchcraft. It's based on the witch hunts on Åland, Finland in the 1600s.

As wildfires rage ever more fiercely across Europe, Finnish and Portuguese firefighters join forces on the front lines. This visually stunning documentary takes viewers into the flames and shows humanity's struggle against nature's most destructive force.

Pertsa and Kilu are two neighbour boys with different backgrounds. They live adventurous life of a young imaginary mind in small harbour town. Accidentally they get involved in a bank robbery. Through their own investigation of the case, imagination and real danger gets mixed and leads to great adventure where friendship and courage is on stake.

The Soviet army breaks through the Finnish defences on the Karelian Isthmus in June 1944, advancing with overwhelming force. Somehow, the Finnish troops must find the strength to fight back, with all odds against them. The Battle of Tali-Ihantala was the largest battle ever fought in the history of the Nordic countries. This film depicts the true events through five separate stories.

Pasi returns to his childhood town, asked to reconfigure the local plywood factory. With a child on the way with his upper-class wife, Pasi sees an opportunity – this is his ticket to climb the professional ladder in the company. On arrival, he bumps into his childhood friend Janne, who works in the factory he is about to downsize. Pasi begins to struggle with the fact that he is supposed to care for the profits – not for the people.

Lapland Odyssey is a comedy about Janne, a man from Lapland in northern Finland, a man who has made a career out of living on welfare. Inari, his girlfriend, is tired of Janne's incapability of getting a grip on life, Janne wasn't even able to buy a digital TV box that Inari had given money for. Inari gives an ultimatum: a digital box needs to arrive by dawn or she leaves. Janne sets out into the night with his two friends to find a box. On their way to the city of Rovaniemi, Janne and his friends face many challenges, obstacles and temptations. They learn that they need to be daring. There's no room to give into bitterness. The most important thing isn't success, but rather the journey in itself.

A shocking crime forces a man to re-evaluate his life, only to find that going straight is more complicated than he imagined. Ali is a low-level criminal who spends much of his spare time working out at a gym with his brother Pulu. Ali spends most of his day stoned on marijuana, while Pulu is known to drink cleaning products when he's run out of booze. Ali has fallen in love with Inka, a bright woman with a mind of her own, and her independent nature occasionally throws him into a fit of jealousy.

This rollicking sports comedy from Finnish director Markku Polonen follows the exploits of Seppo 'Sladi' Pesonen, an ex-top-tiered race car driver now reduced to instructing students at a driving school. To relieve the monotony of this undesired career, Pesonen builds "Team Susan," a road rally team based at Pekkarinen's Garage in the Finnish countryside. Soon, Sladi's nephew Luumu arrives from Helsinki and learns of the team, his enthusiasm skyrockets and he hops on board with the assist of mechanic Suko. Yet the men encounter Machiavellian sabotage at the hands of the vile Torppo, the owner of the lot that contains Pekkarinen's Garage, who is determined to interfere with the plans of Team Susan.

Career woman finds out that her boyfriend is living a secret double life. She finds a bag of money and decides to make a run for it. She is accompanied by a little girl who is also on a run from her criminal step-father. Together they're trying to make it to her grandmothers house.

Eden is a coming-of-age film about a Protestant Confirmation camp on a summer’s week, set in the archipelago of Helsinki. Aliisa is the intellectually confident non-believer, Jenna is the queen bee and Panu is the scared bird. The experience of these teenagers is affected by Tiina, a young and eager priest.

In 1980s Helsinki, a city about to burst with young energy and rebellion, two young writers determined to conquer the world fall madly in love. For Inka, the love affair puts everything in motion: she finds her own voice, publishes her first novel, and becomes a sensation. The intensity of their relationship has a different affect on Juhana, who starts to lose his grip on writing and, finally, life. At the height of the love affair Inka starts to suspect that their mad love might actually be real madness.

A mockumentary about a fictional Finnish boy band The Joyboys.

A group of middle-aged friends get together for dinner. The playful banter between couples who have known each other all their lives escalates into a adult version of the childhood game of truth or dare when no one dares to refuse the challenge. For this evening, all calls, texts, WhatsApps and other messages are public. Is it true that no one has any secrets?

It’s been three years since we last met Janne and Inari. Since then, they’ve had a daughter named Lumi. Janne and his friends experience a new adventure, this time on an autumn night. The boys go to a party but end up chasing Lumi who has disappeared. Meanwhile, Inari enjoys a girls-night-out and has an adventure of her own.

Unrest breaks out in eastern Helsinki as a Finnish family man gets hospitalized in the summer of 2015. Gangs of young people are burning down cars and public buildings, confronting the security guards and the riot police. The narrative goes backwards, towards the riots which mark the end of our movie. As the story begins, the unrest is still bubbling under, ready to explode any time. Vandalism and robbery are not uncommon in the suburbs; neither is violence towards the police and the security guards. Frustration, alienation, isolation and poverty corrode the asphalt surface of the multicultured society, otherwise relatively harmonious.

On April 13th 1976, a devastating munitions factory accident shook the town of Lapua, Finland. Hundreds of kilograms of gunpowder ignited, causing an explosion that took the lives of 40 workers. Lapua 1976 tells a story of love, life, perseverance, grief and hope in the face of unbelievable calamity.

PJ, a struggling screenwriter and his best friend Jami, a successful car dealer, are fed up with how painfully stuck their heads are in their ways. They decide to do something about it and rent a cabin on the Finnish archipelago for the weekend to get their minds blown - with magic mushrooms. A little getaway between the men gets out of hand when a series of coincidences turn their plans upside down.

The story of an overly protective and controlling father who suspects incest is taking place between his own son and daughter. These growing suspicions and concerns cause the father to become delusional and unrelenting in his quest to end the love affair between his children.

Marja tries to make ends meet by taking night shifts in a newspaper delivery service, apparently mostly carried out by foreigners. During the day, she sleeps and strives to raise her little daughter as best as she can. As a single parent and lacking a solid income, life is a constant struggle. Things are about to go from bad to worse when she meets her ex-boyfriend whose obsessive demeanour about whether he is the father of Marja´s child will drive her to the edge of sanity.